Mashes 6-18
Posted: July 19th, 2012, 10:19 am
Guess we must be the only ones diving these days....if that's true, everyone is really missing out. We left mashes at daybreak in a buddy's old mako and were met with gorgeous clear skies and smooth seas. Finally a nice run to the grounds where I could actually have a snack and chat. We quickly made it past the 9mi boundary and stopped in 40ft. The vis was perfect for spearing and the lite current made it extra nice. There wasn't much tide all day. 1st stop, my buddy comes up with 2 keeper gags and a nice red grouper. He was raving over all the fish he saw. We hit two spots a little deeper that were beautiful dives, just not many shootable fish. We then eased back to the area we started and picked up a few more reds and a nice hog. There wasn't much else going on so we ran in to an area we did well on last week. I didnt want to hit the same spots, so we idled around, marking 2 new relief spots. Making one last pass over one of them, we look back and the trolling rod is doubled over. My buddy was certain it was bottom, but I knew that bottom was attached to a fish. It had roaches up pretty good, so I idled back to where the line went straight down, and tossed the anchor. I strapped on my tank which had 1000 pounds left. I figured that would be plenty to pulled this fish out. I eased down the line to find the tail of a 25" gag sticking out of a crack. I figured with all those hooks around, spearing him would be best. The shot was perfect and as a pulled him out, the lure came free.... Whew , that was close. As I then got ready to come up, the rocks came alive! The outcroppings were no more than 2 ft tall, but there were fish everywhere. Hogfish , gags, reds, bait , looksowns, mangos, grunts .....it had it all. Anyhow, with 500 pounds, I bought up two nice gags, a keeper red, and 2 hogs..... AwesOme dive! My buddy hit the other new mark and saw many gags he had to watch swim by, and came in with another red, hog and sheep. We wound up with a gag limit, 6 red to 24" ( most ever for us), 5 or 6 hogs and a big sheepie. We hauled in to beat the storms and were at the dock by 230 or so. Wonderful day.
BTW, I finally figured out the trick to cleaning grouper throats. Pretty easy.
BTW, I finally figured out the trick to cleaning grouper throats. Pretty easy.
